Charged With Governance
by postscriptress
Summary: "Well, 'cause you work and live in Paris and all? Why would you want to stay here? And don't –" here he actually does reach for her, actually presses his palm against her lips (she has to concentrate really hard so she doesn't do anything stupid like, say, kiss said palm) "– don't you dare say something cheesy like 'because I love you'. I'm not one of your princesses."


"Let's say Nozaki's right and your plane does have something valuable on it," Yuu says, keeping her eyes diligently on the road and not on the man sitting beside her, mulling over things on the passenger seat. Keeping her voice perfectly calm and even despite the ripples of jealousy breaking through – that Masayuki would take Nozaki's words at face value, but not hers. "What'll you do, then?"

Masayuki turns to her and says "Well, I'll restart the airline, of course!" with a raised eyebrow and a voice that spells out the obvious. At this Yuu can't help herself – her shoulders fall, breaking the impeccable line of her posture. It's a minute change, but Masayuki sees it anyway, and one of his hands shoots up, almost reaches for her. "I'm sorry, Yuu. But I really don't want to move to Paris. And it's not like I can just ask you to stay here in Tokyo."

"Why can't you?"

"Well, 'cause you work and live in Paris and all? Why would you want to stay here? And don't –" here he actually does reach for her, actually presses his palm against her lips (she has to concentrate really hard so she doesn't do anything stupid like, say, kiss said palm) "– don't you dare say something cheesy like 'because I love you'. I'm not one of your princesses."

Still so shy, I see. Yuu peels the very warm, very kissable hand away from her mouth, for once doesn't say anything about Masayuki being wrong because he's 'her one and only princess', and beams. "I won't say it, but I will think it. Very loudly." I love you, I love you, I love you.

It's either Masayuki had somehow achieved telepathy overnight, or the crackers he'd filched from her glove box compartment really were past their expiration date, because he flinches away from her. Yuu tries not to let the hurt show on her flawlessly elegant face. She is a grown adult, for crying out loud.

"Yuu..."

"Masayuki. Why do you hate me when I say that, anyway? I mean, it's the truth and all?"

"I don't – well, hate is such a strong word, but if you insist – I don't hate it, not exactly. Well. Not anymore. Not as much as I used to, in any case." Masayuki's cheeks are fire-engine red and he doesn't really seem to be breathing.

"What's the problem, then?"

"Look. You see, across the years, I very well know that you've gotten the affections of countless individuals. You've gotten some boyfriends in the past, and I do not even know where to begin with counting your many girlfriends – I'm not saying this in an attempt to offend or belittle you, mind. I'm just. Saying it. Conversationally."

"And...?"

"And, well, you just – listen, I'm not really surprised that saying those words has gotten easy for you by now, okay?" A far cry from Masayuki, who, despite the loud erratic thumping of his heart every time Yuu'd so much as smile at him, the feverish flush of his brow whenever she'd call him amazing, or the fireworks going off in his brain every time she'd kiss him back, can't even get to say three teeny little words. He hasn't even ever told her he'd liked her, at the very least. "So, sometimes I just get to thinking, what's different this time?" Do you really mean it as much as I actually hope you do? Or is it just something you say to the people you go to the opera with?

"Well, there's the simple matter of your height, for one." Yuu says, remarkably carelessly, one hand rising up to knead a sore spot of her nape. A particular coat pocket of hers feels so damned heavy, all of a sudden. Is she really going to do this? Now?

Masayuki's since gotten his teeth gritted, his fists clenched, and his eyes have narrowed into slits. Looking very much like he'd want to wring her pretty neck, traffic rules be damned. "My what?"

He looks so ferociously enraged. It's not the most handsome of looks on him, but. Yuu can't help but think – that's the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with.

Oh, yeah, she's really going to do this. Right now.

"You're five-foot-four," Yuu says. It's a harmless non-sequitur (well, not as harmless as it should be, since this is Masayuki Hori's height we're talking about), but her heart is beating wildly in her chest and she has to take a really deep breath to calm herself. "You wanna know how many of my partners, boyfriends, and – you're right – countless girlfriends are exactly five-foot-four? I'll give you a hint, none of them. Some of 'em are even tinier, most of them aren't, but you are the only one who's that exact height, that when I carry you on my back it's almost as if you were made to fit there."

Reading between the lines, the context is painfully obvious – you and I, we're meant to be.

But Masayuki's never really been good at reading between the lines. So he doesn't get it.

Masayuki's eyes narrow even more, which is apparently a thing that is possible. He crosses his arms, sighs, and says, perfectly deadpan, "If this is your roundabout way of dumping me, I at least appreciate your creativity."

"...and you're right, Masayuki." She's called him mostly cutesy nicknames like 'Masa-chan' for a good chunk of their relationship, that hearing his name – his proper name – from her lips is a bit jarring. And she's said it twice by now. What's happening here? Masayuki can't help but think.

"You're right: you aren't the first one I've professed my love to. Or the first man, even. But you are, in fact, the only one who's made me feel this way. Like, well, a lovesick, hopeless teenager. Like I might just really literally die of heartache if one day you'd decided never to grace me with your wit and impromptu projectile-throwing. Like it only took the barest of your smiles for me to feel as if the world had turned on its axis and you were the one it revolved around, instead. When you first agreed to go out with me, it was like you gave me the sun, moon, and all of the stars, all at once." Masayuki's head is downcast, his mouth a tight line, and he doesn't really seem to be moving. Yuu chuckles, a bit wanly. "But that wasn't when I decided that I wanted to marry you. It was when I gave you those chocolates on Valentine's day, even when Mikoto kept telling me that you didn't want handmade chocolates in the first place, and you still ate them." He had turned to her then and said that of course he'd eat them. Because. They're from you, Kashima.

It had taken her all of White Day to finally, finally wrangle her name from his lips. The sound had been sweeter than any other kind of sweet he could have given her.

"No one decides to marry me, Yuu Kashima." Masayuki says, his voice void of emotion, almost deliberately so. "I'm the one who decides to marry them."

"Of course," Yuu concedes, her smile slow and sweet as dripping honey. She reaches into her coat pocket and the little box that had been inside goes 'pop!' perfectly into the hollow of Masayuki's lap. She'd been practicing this, but don't tell Masayuki – it's come to the point where she just knows it'll land perfectly, and she doesn't even have to keep her eyes away from the road as she throws it. "So. What's your decision?"

Silence befalls them, and it's a crushing, deadly kind of silence, not the one they have when they're driving home from the opera or snuggling on Masayuki's couch or looking up at the stars. Yuu wants to pull over, afraid she might just puke or something. Masayuki's silence really just might be the death of her, this time.

The traffic light goes red, and Yuu stops completely, her hand itching to let herself out so she can empty the contents of her stomach in an ungraceful manner in the nearest trash bin, but then –

– then Masayuki's pulling her close, almost savagely, by the collar of her shirt, kissing her so roughly and so desperately, as if she was water itself and he was a man who'd been travelling aimlessly through the desert, parched for eternity.

He pulls away exactly as the traffic light goes green again, both of them panting in the aftermath. Yuu's trying very much not to cause a traffic accident when, over the obnoxiously loud beating of her heart, she hears him say, his voice almost a whisper: "Don't be daft. There is no way in freaking hell that I will never want to get married to you."

Yuu's eyes go wide as dinner plates and there's an all-out victory parade playing in her head, seriously. Seriously. "So...so, it's a yes, then?" Yuu says, still not believing her luck, tripping over her words for the very first time in her entire life.

"Of course it's a yes, you little brat." Masayuki says, beaming that smile that lights up his entire face and leaves Yuu struck dead in the majesty of his radiance. If he's telling the truth and this is exactly what Masayuki feels when Yuu smiles at him, Yuu can't help but admire how he's managed to live up to now. "Now why don't you pull over, hmm? So I can show you just how much I agree with your little proposition."

Needless to say, this is why the two of them arrive at their rendezvous point exactly twenty minutes late.

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**Original AO3 Link: /works/3207977**


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